Hello everyone!

I like to present Solder Aid in this post. It is an extremely useful equipment which sucks the poisonous gas due to melted soldering alloy and sucks it away using an ordinary 12VDC fan removed from a computer. The circuit is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Solder Aid circuit.

It is basically a 1.25-14.5VDC regulated voltage source built around LM317 IC. A super bright white LED is also attached to the fan as shown in Fig. 2 to illuminate the soldering area.


Fig. 2. Solder Aid.




Fig. 3. Solder Aid is working.

Solder Aid is as useful as the Soldering Iron. Any suggestions or comments to improve it?

Greetings

 

Great! I think your edited post looks good, and I'll probably build a similar solder aid for myself. I don't know why I hadn't thought before how simply such a useful piece of equipment can be made.

Here's a suggestion for your solder aid: The power supply part of the circuit could be made much simpler if the circuit was USB-powered, although this would require you to have a computer with a USB port nearby when soldering.

I also have a question: Is the fan intended to be used to blow solder fumes out of a window, or just to circulate the air in a room?

 

Great! I think your edited post looks good, and I'll probably build a similar solder aid for myself. I don't know why I hadn't thought before how simply such a useful piece of equipment can be made.

Here's a suggestion for your solder aid: The power supply part of the circuit could be made much simpler if the circuit was USB-powered, although this would require you to have a computer with a USB port nearby when soldering.

I also have a question: Is the fan intended to be used to blow solder fumes out of a window, or just to circulate the air in a room?

My desk is right next to the window so Solder Aid sucks fumes out of the window.

 

Congrats on the fume extractor build and I would suggest making so changes though ... I would add a charcoal filter to filter out the fume instead of pushing them around the area you work in. I am not sure what size fan your using but might look into using a high static fan with the filter and keep a track of what kind of noise each fans puts out.. I was looking into building mine except I was thinking about using coolant hose to hold the fan in the area where it's need and maybe some LED will help too What is the zener diode for in the LED circuit ???

 

Congrats on the fume extractor build and I would suggest making so changes though ... I would add a charcoal filter to filter out the fume instead of pushing them around the area you work in. I am not sure what size fan your using but might look into using a high static fan with the filter and keep a track of what kind of noise each fans puts out.. I was looking into building mine except I was thinking about using coolant hose to hold the fan in the area where it's need and maybe some LED will help too What is the zener diode for in the LED circuit ???

The zener is placed to keep a constant voltage across the white LED so that its brightness won't change when R2 is varied.
R2 controls the output voltage and thus the speed of the fan. When I designed the circuit long time ago I wanted white LED to be a visual indicator of the fan speed besides illuminating the soldering area. But it may be moved before the LM317 IC. You may change/improve the design as you wish.

 

What's the idea behind the series C2 & C3?

 

You are reducing capacitance by half,you have them connected in series.

 

What's the idea behind the series C2 & C3?

The transformer output is 12VAC which corresponds to 17V peak DC voltage after rectification and filtering. So I used two 1000uF/16V in series to make a 500uF/32V cap. And this is in parallel with the 1000uF/25V. So, now I have 1500uF cap which stands up to 25V.
You can simplify the design if you have a suitable part.

 

...

Here's a suggestion for your solder aid: The power supply part of the circuit could be made much simpler if the circuit was USB-powered, although this would require you to have a computer with a USB port nearby when soldering.

...

There are many forms of USB power supplies available other than from a computer. Although I will leave it to the experts to determine what current rating is required.

But the solder aid is a great idea and the suggestions seem to make sense.

A shield around the LED might help contain unwanted glare
Richard

 

The zener is placed to keep a constant voltage across the white LED so that its brightness won't change when R2 is varied.
R2 controls the output voltage and thus the speed of the fan. When I designed the circuit long time ago I wanted white LED to be a visual indicator of the fan speed besides illuminating the soldering area. But it may be moved before the LM317 IC. You may change/improve the design as you wish.

I am not understanding how that works maybe some else can please explain why its setup like that and why ??

 

There are many forms of USB power supplies available other than from a computer. Although I will leave it to the experts to determine what current rating is required.

But the solder aid is a great idea and the suggestions seem to make sense.

A shield around the LED might help contain unwanted glare
Richard

I like the led shield idea but with the USB power supply I wouldn't recommend it cause any high quality fan that you choose to use most likely will pull to much current frying the circuit or the computer .. But can be done with a cheap fan just to help move the fumes away but I like the filter idea in order to absorb the fumes instead of just spreading them around....

The transformer output is 12VAC which corresponds to 17V peak DC voltage after rectification and filtering. So I used two 1000uF/16V in series to make a 500uF/32V cap. And this is in parallel with the 1000uF/25V. So, now I have 1500uF cap which stands up to 25V.
You can simplify the design if you have a suitable part.

The 12AC output transformer and peaks at 17v dc ,but the voltage should drop when the load is applied to about the 12vac mark ..Since you added a bridge rectifier then you are losing 1.4v cause of the voltage drop in the diodes and lose 1.25v in the voltage regulator and I am not sure if C4 is miss marked but I think you should have a decoupling cap to filter out the low end noise .. I still don't understanding why the the zener diode is even there cause I would have just added a dimmer style circuit for the led in order to control the brightness.

 

I have a question for you guy's that are worried about 'death' from soldering. Just what is the perceived "poison" involved here? I must not be soldering correctly, there isn't any cloud of smoke when soldering on my projects. And as far as lead particles, in the smoke, that is not even possible at soldering temperatures.

 

Lead in the air is possible with soldering but it is so small it not considered toxic ... I was involved with a company for a short time that did alot of soldering in small spaces and a woman sued them for lead poisoning through inhalation.. But a couple expert teams came in and tested the air and found the air quality to be perfectly fine and her cased got dropped but still the company installed a filtration system in the areas of the soldering and now everyone must sign a no suit clause for lead poisoning or such from soldering .. Personal I figured if that you go through all the effort to build a fume extractor then there is no reason not add a filter and I don't want to destroy my lungs anymore then what's already done and rather be safe the sorry .. Plus I don't want my kids breathing that too.

 

When I solder, I set up a sheet of plywood as a workbench next to an open window and put a Marvin twin window fan on the sill. Having a powerful fan blowing air out the window pretty much eliminates the problem of fumes for me.

 

I like the smell of rosin myself.

 

Where I worked they had open leadpots on the assemble lines for dip soldering wires, and injection molded lead to make battery cable terminals. OSHA almost lived there, but there was never a trace of lead in the air. Don't believe the airborne lead in solder smoke thing.

Like Wendy, I like the rosin smell.

 

Where I worked they had open leadpots on the assemble lines for dip soldering wires, and injection molded lead to make battery cable terminals. OSHA almost lived there, but there was never a trace of lead in the air. Don't believe the airborne lead in solder smoke thing.

Like Wendy, I like the rosin smell.

I love the smell of my kester 44 .. I know it's not lead burning off but flux burning off and hence why the smoke and that is why I would choose use a carbon filter to clean it out cause my work space is my kitchen right now and with the heat being high a window is not a option..

 

Hello everyone!

I like to present Solder Aid in this post. It is an extremely useful equipment which sucks the poisonous gas due to melted soldering alloy and sucks it away using an ordinary 12VDC fan removed from a computer. The circuit is shown in Fig. 1.
View attachment 89396
Fig. 1. Solder Aid circuit.

It is basically a 1.25-14.5VDC regulated voltage source built around LM317 IC. A super bright white LED is also attached to the fan as shown in Fig. 2 to illuminate the soldering area.
View attachment 89397

Fig. 2. Solder Aid.


View attachment 89398



Fig. 3. Solder Aid is working.

Solder Aid is as useful as the Soldering Iron. Any suggestions or comments to improve it?

Greetings

Clever project, but.....

My entire personality is the result of my having inhaled solder fumes for the past 40 years. I'd hate to think your invention would be depriving someone of the same enriching experience.

 

and that is why I would choose use a carbon filter to clean it out cause my work space is my kitchen right now and with the heat being high a window is not a option..

I don't have AC, so that's not a problem for me except perhaps during the hottest part of the day. But I found out this evening that my solder aid setup doesn't work well when it rains.